Memoria Arts~ Life in the Making

Smack in the middle...

Pardon me while I wipe the salt play dough off my hands.

Sit down, grab a cup of lukewarm coffee. It was hot, I promise.

Ann sent me looking for beauty yesterday. I'd show you what I found, but my camera is having a "moment". Honestly, I'm not sure I'd have had the time to press shutter and catch it.

My head quakes with pressure- this ache has been playing around my temples for days- and the noise! Oh, the noise! It burns around the edges and sets me so close to fuse, explosion waiting on tip of tongue.

Chaos.

That's pretty much it. Nutshell, crisp and clean.

Daylight Savings Time has played mischief with sleep, children rising grumpier, and I know a week will pass until it calms down again. We've been at the learning, pushing, counting, wondering at facts, and while I enjoy that, the questions, endless round, come five o clock and dinner pushing on, tear at the fabric of my sanity.

I'm smack in the middle of everyday life.

I pause, hard stop, and shift.

Email clanging gives reminder that I am privileged to pray for others, with praise, with concern, with care.

The laundry is full to brim because of a little girl who hasn't quite managed the whole process yet, but oh how close she is! How she tries! And how proud I am of her...

(but if the boys could kindly keep their socks some vestige of white, the muddied washer and I would thank them. And don't get me started on their bathroom...)

And all the salt dough crumbles scattered across the floor mean we had a wondrous adventure across Mercury's skies...

I'm smack in the middle of everyday life.

Outside, storms threaten. Elections, votes, causes, concerns, illnesses, economies, lost jobs. How I know the face and color of the recession storm so well- have I not lived it these last fourteen months? The squalls, they crash and buffet.

I took the kids to find some beauty yesterday afternoon...to scramble over the hills and dales of an Appalachian fall in full bloom. I don't remember much of it. I wanted to snap pictures, gather a bit of scarlet and gold, find a snatch of beautiful. But Josiah, dear heart, had gone all day without napping, fussy as could be. David had somehow managed to remove both shoes and sweatshirt before sneaking into car, and barefoot and bare headed, came bounding out of car at the park. A return home for needed articles, and back to the park. The bigs were in a veritable grump. Nothing pleased, nothing soothed. Wild things, indeed, tromping angrily through the forest.

A sigh bubbled up.

Over in the corner, my husband was showing the children this wizened old tree, where some of the roots were showing. The detritus of autumn was all about, red, gold, green, brown, thick and fragrant. I paused to listen as he said told children how the roots went as twice as deep and wide as the tree above the earthen floor- I could see the truth of it in the gnarled roots we could see, maybe a quarter of the trees root system? It was a scattered conversation, and then the kids went crying and wilding again. We didn't stay long.

But for some reason, that tree has stuck with me all day to day. That tree, smack in the middle of the hill, the chunk of earth worn away from a side, but still standing tall and straight as the day is long. Holding against the storms that washed that chunk away.

Do I have that kind of root system?

That's why we search after beauty. That's why we count His days. So that we can dig deep and stand tall. Smack in the middle of our chaotic days, right where God wants us to be.

With salt dough mess on our hands and lukewarm coffee.

Blessings to you, dear friends, smack in the middle of life. May the Lord strengthen and keep you!

Clarity of purpose...

 

Thinking on this. And this.

October has become a time of renewal and focus for me. Many people claim the turn of January's morning, or the freshly sharpened pencils of a September afternoon, but the burn and flame of falling leaf calls me to start anew. Last year was a profound shift. Grief will suddenly bring into sharp focus what is salient and what is not. In a surprising way, the fractured pieces of my life seemed to come into a beautiful, kaleidoscopic focus. I finally stopped living such a divided life upon the realization that all the broken pieces of rainbow colors were what made it all so marvelous. I have journeyed over the last year of letting go and watching the pieces being melded together into something altogether new by the Master Artist.

The heat of metal and glass coming together is not exactly a calm, cool existence, and neither has this year been anything of the sort. The sear of flame has been altogether too painful at times. At others, the beautiful hue and beam of loveliness and joy peeks through...a child's laugh, a task well done.

I am learning to be patient. Patient with myself. Patient with the process. Patient with endless realities. I won't deny I wonder at what plans the Lord has for us...or why it has taken so long for those paths to be revealed. It's puzzling to me, to say the least.

I got to spend a lot of quiet moments staring out over the water this last week...I had a peaceful little sitting area in our bedroom at our vacation house where I would often slip off to when time allowed. It was a lovely place to nurse the baby. Thoughtful, prayerful moments. I can't say enough how very important it is to find this sort of time every once in a while. It is needful for health of mind, body, and soul. I realized that I try to label and analyze things too much, almost as a defense mechanism- if I can name it, box it, make it 'fit', then it's not so scary. I think, though, that sometimes, problems and perplexities need to be dwelt with, lived through, learned through with quietness of soul and heart full of trust in God's providence. How very hard that is! It seems to be a lesson I have had to learn again and again this last year.

In a conversation with my husband a few days past, I said something to him along the lines of " I never thought I would be turning into another season of life, a full ten years later, and still not know certain things. I find it to be just a little bit disconcerting." I keep trying to cast about for absolutes in black and white when I live in a world full of gray. Don't get me wrong- there is One who is Absolute, and how thankful I am for that. But I keep trying to pigeonhole people into neat little boxes, problems into neat little definitions, cut perplexities down to manageable sizes. Take mothering- I keep trying to know what it is to be a mother. To have some prim and tidy definition complete with checklist that defines for me exactly what it means to be a "good mother". There is absolutely no such checklist anywhere, as any mom can tell you. What it means to be a good mama changes on a moment to moment basis. Why to I keep trying to label it then? It makes for endless frustrations.

I've slowly been realizing that my purpose, regardless of occupation, is to wait patiently on the Lord. I don't need to know everything. I just need to know Him and the rest will fall in place.

Wait with me?

Coming to the hard stops of soul care...

I have a dear friend who has gently been watching over me from a distance.

Yesterday, she asked me how I was doing- really doing. Not the "I'm fine, just great!" question. More like the "how are you and God these days?" question. Followed hard upon with the next question- "are you taking care of yourself?"

In my dear friend's mind, the two are quite intertwined. One can't be answered without the other, because to her, taking care of oneself naturally means that one is meeting with God too. Me? I tend the separate out the two by default- as if one could exist without the other, like somehow one could technically be okay without the God-flow in our lives. And there, I err. And I know it too, that I cannot survive, cannot breathe in the space of my days without the sustaining force of my Lord, and yet- and yet...I starve more often than not. I hold myself back from the provision He has so graciously given me, mine for the taking if I would only stop. And listen. And pray.

Sometimes when my friend asks these hard questions, I shrink within. I know she expects an honest answer, and the honesty is sometimes too appalling. Her gentle touches seem to wound, but they are the best kind- the type that excise the infection from a gash and set it to proper healing. But yesterday, I bloomed with the joy that I could answer positively to both questions. Yes, God and I were meeting. He was there, and I was attendant. And yes, I was taking care of myself, as best as I can possibly could with a brand new babe. She probed a bit further, just to be sure, as she knows I have struggled with postpartum depression in the past. And as we talked, I mentioned that it bothered me that it took me until my fifth child, my miracle baby, to finally learn the art of self care. Of soul care. Was it not important with the other four children? Was not my need for sustenance important all the other days that I have walked this journey? I am not sure why. I am still puzzling over this.

As our conversation drew to a close, I was thinking about why this time was different, why I could honestly answer my friend, without one shred of guilt, that yes, I was caring for myself in both the physical and the spiritual sense.

Sustenance.

I tend to try to do too many things at once. Just one more task, one more minute, one more, one more, one more. Until am I exhausted, drawn out, and unable to function. This is my biggest danger when a new baby is in the house, and I knew it. Saw it for the trap it was, and had been prayerfully considering it all summer long. It wasn't until I read Katherine's post, No NAK , that something clicked in my mind. Here's a small snippet of what she said:

NAK is online slang for "nursing at keyboard." I've made this mistake in the past. I won't do it again. The amount of time I spend nursing my newborn is tremendous. If I used every nursing session as a chance to check email, Facebook or Google Reader I would be on the computer for most of the day and night. Nursing is a special time to bond with one's baby, building the foundation for a lifelong relationship. I can't bond and build anything if I'm balancing a nursing baby on an elbow and knee and staring at a screen. 

Now, Katherine's post was talking about time spent online in general, and this was just a small part of the whole article. But she goes on from this paragraph to say that she has set up her space near her rocking chair as place for prayer. (She's Orthodox.) I think that's what clicked together in my mind as I read this over a month ago now, before Josiah was born. I feel like I've definitely come to a place of balance with my online time, and I don't feel the least bit guilty about my current usage. My thoughts tend to reflect Katherine's in practically all points. But on the other hand, I am horrible about regular prayer times. It is one of those things that constantly discourages me about myself, because as I've said, it's akin to starving!

I resolved at that point that nursing and prayer time, as much as I was able, were to be definitively linked after Josiah was born. I had also decided, in tandem, that no longer would I try to do forty things at once while nursing (you'd be amazed what you can do with a sling or a moby and a willing baby). I would sit down, I would put my feet up, I would have something to drink nearby, and I would stop. The only thing I would 'allow' myself was the chance to read, but even then, only in the early evening hours.

For the last three weeks, that is exactly what I have been doing. Every two and a half, three hours, I stop. I rest. I pray. I marvel at the miracle of Josiah.

And wouldn't you know, I am in a much better head space, emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually?

Sustenance.

Ann Voskamp has been doing a series on spiritual disciplines, and this month's focus has been on prayer. Today she wrote an article called prayer: why we struggle (and how not to). Please click over and read the whole thing, the whole series. It is very good. But here is what caught my eye: 

"I never notice it when I just pray after reading Scripture, early or late, when we pray before and after meals. Prayer's short, convenient. It's only when I began to follow the way of Jesus and the early church in fixed hour prayer, feeding my soul at certain fixed times like I eat at certain fixed times, and I was confronted with this consistent struggle to cease working and kneel in prayer, that I realized the true ugliness of my lack of prayer.

It's a startling, wrenching thing to discover that it's not time, or busyness, or pressing concerns that prevent one from prayer. The extent of prayer in one's life is a direct function of whether something else has been set up as more important than God. "

My nursing/prayer times immediately came to mind. It has been very hard for me to come to these hard stops and well, stop. To meet God. It has been a constant struggle actually, to just be still. But even in these short three weeks, I realize how much the better I am for it. And I am shamed by that realization, that statement, that something else has been set up as more important than God. And I question, with Ann, as to why I let my soul starve when the answer is so very simple. Yet I cannot help but see the sort of humor my Lord has, as he has brought me to sustenance through the very act of sustaining- of nursing! As I am nourishing Josiah, through God's grace, the Lord is nourishing me. It makes me smile to think upon it, this gentle irony. Oh that I would learn! His ways are always better. 

Isaiah 66:11-13

¹¹ For you will nurse and be satisfied
       at her comforting breasts;
       you will drink deeply
       and delight in her overflowing abundance."

 ¹² For this is what the LORD says:
       "I will extend peace to her like a river,
       and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream;
       you will nurse and be carried on her arm
       and dandled on her knees.

 ¹³ As a mother comforts her child,
       so will I comfort you;
       and you will be comforted over Jerusalem."

Three steps forwards, two steps back, and songs of redemption...

The status updates tell the story. Whispered honesty into cyberspace. "Three steps forwards and two steps back today." And through the cyber lines, encouragement whispered back..."right there with you! Praying for you!" My love/hate relationship with Facebook has suddenly turned to an intense like of the platform. Without it, I find myself wondering what my last week would have looked like. (And for those curious, most of my posts on the blog here lately were pre-written before baby arrived and published as I get a chance to look them over.) A few blogging friends and I managed to deliver with in hours or days of each other. On Facebook we suffered the vagaries of late term pregnancy together (the late nights, the heartburn, the pain, the false contractions). We all watched with bated breath for the birth announcements posted by husbands, and then, as this week has come on, we've prayed each other through grandmas and help leaving and husbands going back to work as we transition into a new "normal". It has been my lifeline, this collection of bits and bytes on a server somewhere...this near real-time connection to other walking the journey with me. Without them, I would not remember to go slowly and be patient with myself.

I've gone back and forth over the last three years of blogging about the whole idea of the internet community. At times I've struggled with what I realized to be an addiction- spending hours in front of the screen, shooing my children from the keyboard, absolutely absorbed in others lives when I should have been living my own. I've known the love of this community as prayers and emails poured in after I lost a baby last year- I had no idea how many people out there cared, how many were listening. I've watched drama unfold between bloggers over things that had no business being aired over the internet in the first place. I realize now that it is truly a balancing act.

Yet, I cannot deny what a gift this community is. As I've worked on the Cardboard Testimony project, I've dwelt with the stories of my spiritual brothers and sisters at Grace- messy, redeeming stories that seem to spill out just as the paint covers my hands, leaving a mark on my soul.  Their stories of redemption have become a part of me. So it is too with this blogging and internet community, from High Calling to Facebook. Community, fellowship, and support in a medium unheard of even ten years ago. Stories of loss, stories of triumph, stories of grace...what was once just electronic impulses have turned into songs of redemption whispered through- and I hear them. I hope you hear them too. 

Needless to say, I've entered into a new time in my life, a time of transition yet again. I don't know what this means for my blogging here. I might post a lot. I might post very little. I do know that I'll keep listening to the whispered songs. 

This is my tiny little song, whispering thanks and love, grace and peace.

----

Related:

The Friday Five (Andrea @ The Flourishing Mother)

Thoughts from Recovery (Aimee @ Living, Learning, and Loving Simply)

Read the Writing on The Wall (Ann @ Holy Experience)~ Isn't this what we do as a community? Stitching together grace in the midst of devastation?

The timing of things...

Quiet here.

Well, sort of quiet.

I am quiet.

The house is not- the children run, wang boom, yeeder deeder, gotcha giggle through the house.
The dishes clank, the water runs. Deep base voice instructs a child to stop. Little snatches of music float- mostly the country songs that I don't care for much, but okay now because I am too far away to listen. Sometimes strains of news reports. Flip of library book page. Clunk. Cry. Comfort. (David, of course, head too big for body, falling over his feet into coffee table, snuffling into Daddy's shoulder.)

But quiet here.

Bedcovers pulled close, pillows piled. Glass of water. Stacks of magazines to enjoy, languishing on the night stand. Tilted lamp shade, knocked last night during goodnight kisses and prayers.

Such a strange divide between quiet and loud, silence and life. Intimate sounds I know well, and I am not a part of them.

After a healthy, peaceful pregnancy, the last week and a half have left me undone. Broken. Sidelined. I can do nothing but rest and bear with the pain until this sweet little one decides to arrive. Time has stopped and yet crawled on, and I am undone with the waiting.

Fear, pain, worry, camp about me in the shadows, almost so real as to be touched. Husband knows. Prays, whispers, kisses forehead. Plays me songs of love and hope.

I painfully made way to church Sunday, and the message has been dwelling with me since.

As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
       so the LORD surrounds his people
       both now and forevermore.
       (Psalm 125: 2)

To whom do I trust my security? Message spoken from this Psalm resonated, moved, caught me in my tracks.

Oh, I've said over and over, of course, "the Lord!" "The Lord has sustained through rough year." here on the blog, to friends, to myself.

But knife pain of conviction pruned close Sunday- mouthed words mean nothing to a heart-level looking God. I've trusted myself for security. What I know of things, how the world works. Trusted the seen, the touchable, the real, the predictable. This pregnancy, I've trusted the doctors. My body. Knowing the rhythms of baby growing, the natural progression of things, because it is number five- so little to surprise me. This a natural response as a human me, I know. Perhaps there is not much wrong with it. But when suddenly all this has come to a stand still (realities which I know and understand) and I am left in the wispy edges of reality, unknown and untimed, why am I so quick to fear, to calculate, to wonder, to grow in anger and frustration at a situation I cannot control? To whom do I trust my security?

Here I am. In the quiet. Undone. But His Word promises me that He surrounds, and in that will I rest.

On Perspective...

I was reading Elizabeth's post on the 'yucky' side of life'. LL's post on silence. Ann's post on spiritual journaling. Couple of other articles saved in my Reader folder....

I've been quiet.

Of course, the reasons have been pretty obvious...

Hospital visits and breathing scares. Late pregnancy. Kids who've gotten way off of normal schedules- a bunch of other 'typical' yucky realities of life that I wouldn't dream of detailing here, because, well, you don't need any more negatives in your life, and I want this to be a comforting, enjoyable, safe place to read, a place that encourages. Peaceful.

I've been thinking.

Have I learned to suffer well?

Anyone who's read here for a small length of time could probably detail the nearly soap-opera-ish roller coaster that has been my life this last year and a half- a cancer scare, a job loss, a miscarriage, nearly losing my life, a new pregnancy, extended illnesses in the family, my husband being hospitalized for four days. A mess. I mean, you look at it bald face and you almost laugh at the could have been written for the movies story-line....it's sort of ridiculous. But the reality is that it has been my life this year. I couldn't have made it up if I tried.

Someone asked me the other day how my faith was holding up, how God and I were these days. And in a way, it felt like the person was sort of searching for an answer, a confession, something, that I couldn't give them.

I can't blame the person for the question. We want answers. We want an easy solution to a problem, we want to see the end from the beginning. We want reasons.

Sometimes there just aren't answers.

I'd love to be able to say, well, this is why this happened, this is why my husband has gone nearly ten months now without a job, why the economy crashed, why every one of my children and my husband have been so very ill the last few months, and on and on....but there isn't an answer. To some extent I think I want to join Job's friends and assign reasons for things when God clearly states later to Job that sometimes things are just plain beyond our ken...it's not for us to know.

What I do know?

Remember.

Remember all the whispers along the way of this year, places where God came through in mighty ways, where His steps were sure even as mine were faltering from weariness and exhaustion. El Roi- the God who sees me in my need, Jehovah Jireh, my provider. Notebooks scribbled full of stories of moments that undeniably came from the hand of God at the very minute it was needed.

Rest in the knowledge that He did not call me to an easy life, He called me to His way, and His way is a path of suffering, not a life of ease.

And that His strength carries me through.

No matter where the next days and weeks and months may take me, I cling to that perspective. In the good and in the bad, He is here.

And all is truly Grace.

Found

I found grace
Painting butterflies down her arm
Precious rare of untold worth
Come from fired hurt
Vessel sweet of Glory beat
Her heart sang
Of loss came life
Of Hope spread wide
Swirling paintbrush
Glitter dust
I found grace
Flying free.

Breathe deep...

    We are all breathing a little easier over here. We caught this illness fast enough that hopefully James can stay ahead of it with agressive asthma meds- they think he actually has the roseolla that the kids have (without the rash, and with a more severe upper respiratory infection). I never thought I'd be thankful for some one to have something viral over something bacterial, but the bacterial upper respiratory infections don't seem to respond well to meds with him. He's still miserable, but he's breathing easier and looks a bit pinker around the gills. The babies have improved immensely. (I guess I won't be able to call them 'the babies' much longer. 'The toddlers' doesn't seem to have the same ring.) Their rashes are fading and they seem to be almost back to their normal selves.
     I am continuously struck by the treasure of breath every time we face an upper respiratory infection around our house. It's just a thing I take for granted, this breathing. In and out. Over and over. Although I struggled a little with asthma when I was younger, it's nothing like the seeming monster that my husband has to battle. One minute, it's the natural intake of air- the next, he's fighting for all he's worth, lips turning blue as his body searches desperately for oxygen. His asthma is so unusual in that it comes on so fast that there is no way to circumvent the attack. It is carefully monitored daily- his doctor and allergist have been so very careful. But there is just something about the upper respiratory infections that will just send him right over the edge like a tidal wave proceeds a hurricane. The sound is unholy- if you've never heard a severe asthma attack (and I hope you never do if you haven't) imagine a tin whistle crossed with a vacuum cleaner- or maybe something stuck in a vacuum cleaner- but the thing making the sound is human and gasping as they do it.
    One of the worst times, he ended up in the hospital for five days, stuck on oxygen (along with a vicious cocktail of medicines that worked hard to open his lungs back up). Five days. My otherwise healthy and amazing husband has this thing to contend with and it's hard not to fear. I remember that week like it was yesterday. Young wife, two young little boys. He had been working extra long hours as a sheriff's deputy. And one night, everything came to a screeching halt. I recognized the attack for what it was and quickly drove him to the ER (I still wonder if I should have called 911 instead). I'll never forget as we came in, how fast the oxygen went on...that mask wouldn't come off again for days. His oxygen levels (SpO2) were in the 30s, when it should have been 100%. They were taking blood gases out of one arm and putting an IV in the other...I got pushed out of the room by a nurse. This sudden realization that I could lose him. I don't think fear quite quantifies what I felt that night. He was so young! I was so young! The children. Odd as this sounds, I entered adulthood that night. Nothing was quite the same after that.
    What I was trying to say in my exhaustion addled state the other day was that I realize how much things have changed in my attitude in relation to crisis. Crisis used to cripple me. I would just sort of stop thinking, stop feeling, shut down. And yes, maybe there are some times when that reaction is an appropriate sign of grief. But in a lot of ways, what I call crisis isn't really a crisis- deep water, perhaps. Dark days, yes. But many of the times, God has purposefully set me in that moment, whether I want to admit it or not. (I do think that we can bring calamity upon ourselves with willful disobedience, but that's not really what I am referring to here.) The only way to come out good as gold is to go through the furnace. There's no escaping it if we want the end point. Sort of like, if I want to get across this body of water, I can't just sit in the middle of the lake with my legs going like an egg beater. I have to swim. As odd as this sounds, I feel a peace about crisis that I used not to feel, a grace and a strength that tomorrow is another day, and the sun will rise. AND, perhaps just as important, I've stopped letting stress force me into running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I think that's where half the paralysis would come from, from trying to do too much and getting overwhelmed and shutting down in response.
    Now, I feel like finding the base line with my family has really changed all that. I would have never thought in my 'younger marriage years' (and ack, how weird does it sound to say that! *giggles*) to sit down with my husband and really talk it all out and pray it all through. What are our family priorities? What defines us? What do we desire for our kids? When we did finally have that discussion two and a half years ago, it was a whole new world. I finally had a focus and purpose to my days. Things began to fall into a rhythm that reflected those priorities. And then about a year ago, we sort of had a practical discussion in that vein as it related to homekeeping and child care. What is really important as far as discipline goes? What will we absolutely not tolerate and discipline for every time, and what can slide on the crazy days? And what will drive us nuts or make me feel really overwhelmed with the house when the day slides sideways? This question of essentials, really.
    This last week was a perfect example. (And what I was trying to say and being totally unclear about.) Things have been very weird and crazy and not 'normal' (although I tend to agree with Erma Bombeck that normal is only a setting on the dryer). In the past, the feeling of being overwhelmed, of not being able to focus, of just sort of shutting down in the face of all the craziness would have been my go-to response. But now I have the essentials, the base line of the rhythm. Sure, it ain't gonna be a pretty six part harmony, and it might squeak in the middle, but it's still our song. Working with James last year, I realized that my triggers were the laundry, the dishes, and the kids bathroom. If the laundry had gotten way behind, (and we were veering towards not having clean underthings or I couldn't find pants), it's almost like my brain would misfire. I would see the mountain and I just couldn't climb it. So James goes out of his way, and I commit to, starting and folding at least one load a day (and if we're actually on top of it, that's usually all I have to do). He knows that he can really help my sanity when things go sideways to get it caught up. The dishes- I have a teeny, tiny kitchen and very very messy children. (It's the age of learning to eat for at least one child every year, so I've learned to accept the mess factor!) And my kitchen happens to be at the top of the stairs- you see it as soon as you walk in the front door. If there are dishes spilling out of the sink, and oatmeal smeared from one end of the counter to the other, (and I'm pregnant) it might actually bring me to tears. So I know for me that I need to have that clean. And that's one of those basic chores I commit to no matter how bad I might be feeling, I know I need to get it as soon as the meal is over. The third is the kids bathroom. I guess it's just the germ factor of having boys, but that thing is nasty more often times than not! It's used constantly. And it can get bad quick. James knows (especially while I'm pregnant) that it needs to get a 'look-see' at least once a day. Quick wipe down, check the tp, what have you. (Not an extensive cleaning). I've found that if I can't get to a real bathroom cleaning for a while, it doesn't take so much to get it clean. Now, that being said, those are the essentials. You could walk in my house on a given day during a crazy time, and there would literally be toys and piles from one end of the house to the other, the kitchen floor could be positively crunchy from spilled cherrios and the like, and woe to the poor person who sits on the duplo that slipped between the cracks of the sofa. (And I wouldn't recommend looking at any flat surfaces- my kids like to draw in the dust.) BUT. You would have clean clothes, and a clean place to eat (and for me to prepare your meal) and the chances of you catching some alien bacterium while visiting the facilities would be very low. And it makes me feel like I can get through the day. It makes me feel like I can breathe.

Grace and rhythm...

I was musing about the one-piece life before leaving for our trip...what it has meant to me, this journey I'm on.

It's interesting looking at it from the lens of having been away from my house and home for nearly three weeks. It wasn't exactly a vacation. It was for my kids- Grandma Camp had been planned for nearly six months. But for my husband and I, it was an epic back and forth...mess. Six and a half hours one way, back again a few days later, and when we actually slipped home during that time, over a stretch of three or four days, we spent only five or so hours (not counting sleeping) actually at home. Doing things. Catching up on the endless to-do list. Then back again, six and a half hours, after serving a morning-long stint at fellowship. (Something else that had been on the calendar for months.) We spent the two of the three days we were actually at my mother's house dealing with stuff from back home- a full workload of school work for James, phone calls and emails for me in my volunteer position as coordinator of a home school co-op. Only one day, one day, out of that whole trip did we actually 'vacation', taking our kids to the Air and Space Museum. And then it was the home school convention- another thing that had been on the calendar for over six months. The circumstances of it all were just beyond our control. There was no way to know that we would end up in such a discombobulated schedule. There are just seasons like that...sudden illness, what have you. It's all out of your hands. It was just about all I could do to hold on through it all...but I feel like I did a much better job of coping with things this time through. And I credit that to the peace we have cultivated here at home. I could hold on because I knew that eventually we would get home, and eventually things would calm down. Having a routine really helped my kids in an unfamiliar place- my mom really endeavored to do some of the same things we do here at home with them at the same times. It helped to ground them. They handled all the craziness like champs- in fact, they had a really good time and were upset when it was time to come home.

We got home, and well, we had some unfriendly souvenirs along- Lorelei and David (who had been fighting fevers when we left Grandma's house) suddenly developed ugly rashes Monday morning. I can't say I was grace-filled at all when I realized what we were facing. In fact, I lost it. I sort of wanted to have a pity-party about it all- "Come on! I'm 32 weeks pregnant! I'm exhausted! I'm tired and confused and the last thing I need is sick kids...AGAIN...there is so much that has to happen!" And I think I did, for a moment, just sort of lose my footing. And then I prayed. I just sort of wordlessly turned it to a prayer and begged the Lord for grace, because I just knew, knew, it was only by His will and strength that I was going to get through the day. (What I find interesting is that this is true every day, but I so often fail to realize that. I keep thinking I can run on my own power.) I still felt awful after praying, not the least at peace. I made the phone call to the doctor. I ran the errands. Come to find out both of the toddlers had roseola (or Sixth's disease- an upper respiratory infection), Lorelei had strep, and David had an ear infection. To say that I am over the constant illness in our house is to make quite the understatement. I am beyond done with this. On the other hand, I understand it is a season. I know it's just the age, and aside from doing my best to stay ahead of the germs and snot, it's just a reality of right now. Still, that doesn't make me feel better. To add to this, my severely asthmatic husband (who is at his worst in the spring) has caught the bronchitis that my sister and father had. What is sort of an annoyance for everyone else is down right dangerous for my husband- an upper respiratory infection (of which two virus strains are present in my family right now) can mean days-long hospitalization if we can't get ahead of it with steroids and antibiotics at home. I am not ready for this.

But this is what God has called me too. I read Andrea's post this morning, and I could relate so well- it was hard for me not to cry as I read it because she could have been taking the words right out of my mouth. (We are only a week a part in our fifth pregnancies.)

I realized that part of my practical Grace to myself was to have our family rhythm in place, to know what I really felt like my priorities are each day. In the absolute chaos of the last few days, I've been able to just put one foot in front of the other, remember the beat, and walk. My house is in some semblance of order- there are clean clothes to wear, food to eat. Is it clean? Not by a lot of people's standards. But it is flowing, which is what is important right now. The floors are a little crunchy, the dust is so thick my kids are drawing murals in them, there are piles and piles all over the place (remember, we just got home from vacation and the convention- tons of clothes and tons of books!), but the bathrooms are clean, there isn't snot on the door handles. (Important with such germ machines!) I've gotten so used to the rhythm that I don't even have to think it through...I just do it...which is so important at this point where late-pregnancy brain drain and exhaustion is taking over.

With God's help, I am ready for this- whether I realize it or not. God is in control here. He's got a reason for this craziness. I just need to walk.

All this to say, though, if you think of us in the next few days, please lift us up in prayer. We could really use it!

Here comes the morning...

I hope you all had a wonderful mother's day!

Here we are, back at a Monday morning. Lots to do. I've slowly been working through some spring cleaning-ish things that have needed to be done, in addition to working on the Cardboard Testimonies. It's quite an inspiration to come back to the pictures and stories when I get a free moment. I've been thinking about Stephanie's post, and how she told her story of motherhood, and how it has changed so much for her...thinking a lot about how stories affect us. How motherhood affects us, and where the two intersect. I've been reading Sally Clarkson's Mission of Motherhood and have now started on Ministry of Motherhood. I've also been reading Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home by Elizabeth Foss. Thinking on my own journey...where I've been, where I'm headed. Those books have really encouraged me to go a bit deeper in my walk of motherhood, and really prayerfully consider things- something I can't say has exactly happened before now. Oh, don't get me wrong, I pray about things a lot, but I can't say that my mothering has exactly been intentional in many ways. And I've really been trying to transition away from reactive, crisis-driven parenting, to focus on discipleship instead of discipline....so much to think about. How I can relate to Ann's post today!

The thing is, I feel at peace. Most days are pretty darn crazy, all in all. But there is this core of peace that I've never known before...I'm finding pleasure in simple things, and it surpises me very much. I credit a lot of this to finally working towards and getting on a schedrule. The kids' behavior has changed a lot- the character issues are unfortunately much more apparent now that crises aren't blocking them from view- but they are generally a lot happier all around. I'm happier. I had no idea that 'knowing what comes next' would make such a big change in my heart and mind. I've read a few books about the whole schedruling idea, but I am sort of afraid to recomend any...afraid to cause any of my Type A readers to trip and fall over the 'rules' that are often presented in those sort of books...gracious knows that I've had to watch my perfectionist streak of a fox closely so as not to ruin this new garden of schedrule. We've been working on it for about a month now, or so? Mine might look pretty relaxed compared to others...who knows? All I know is that our home is a much more peaceful place these days.

Usually at this point in the pregnancy I am an emotional, soggy mess, and have a really hard time getting through the days. I have some physical issues related to my left hip that can really cause some hefty pain by the end of the day, and it used to really do me in. Some days it still does. But my emotional strength is much better than it has ever been during a pregancy- and it feels so weird! I am so thankful for that. I'm sure James is too! I don't know how to describe it. I just feel at peace with who I am, doing the jobs I need to do, being a mama and wife. What a blessing this is for someone who is constantly self-criticzing and judging myself- I know it is of God, because I certainly wouldn't be kind enough to myself to let go of it all. Does that make sense?

So what's on your mama's heart today?